


No Rain, No Flowers

by crescent_woods



Series: kiss prompts [4]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Endgame Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, F/M, Light Angst, despite being a life/death kiss there are no fight scenes or anything about the final battle, final battle babey, just a smoochie before she goes, kiss prompts, luka bashes hawkmoth to make marinette feel better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26286670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescent_woods/pseuds/crescent_woods
Summary: Marinette finally reveals her identity to Luka and it seems to be going pretty well, until Hawkmoth makes a surprise appearance and Luka is left to comfort Marinette before the battle of her life.
Relationships: Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: kiss prompts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1748710
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34





	No Rain, No Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> this was done as a request on my tumblr, @crescent-woods! they asked "Do you write angsty prompts? If so, how about a life or death kiss by the river right before Ladybug has to leave Luka and go fight Hawkmoth one last time without knowing if she'll come back?" so i did my best to deliver!!!

_ Oh. _ Interesting. “So… you’re Ladybug. You, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, artist, baker, fashion designer, class president, Jagged Stone’s personal designer, roller derby captain, are Paris’ most famous crime-stopping, akuma-beating superhero? You?”

“Uh, yeah. Pretty much.”

“Wow.”

“Are you surprised? Upscared? Uh, I mean, upset? Or scared?” 

“I mean, no, not really. It makes sense, honestly. Only Paris’ most fearsome girl could be Ladybug. I just- I don’t really know. That’s a lot.”

She was just standing there in that awkward please-don’t-hate-me Marinette Original stance as he begged his brain to catch up and say  _ something _ to stop her worrying mind.

He took a sharp inhale, about to ask  _ How the  _ hell _ did that happen? _ or maybe  _ why are you telling  _ me _? what’s it like? do you actually know how to spin a yo-yo? how does your Lucky Charm work? where does your power come from? how do you possibly balance all of  _ that _ on top of being Paris’ top crime and Akuma stopper?  _ when his phone buzzed. And then hers. The TV blared a Breaking Report below deck. 

_ Hawkmoth Spotted with Strange New Akuma? _ What could be happening that they classify an Akuma as strange?

Then he pulled up the photo attached to the alert. Hawkmoth and a blue, vaguely humanoid-shape… with  _ tentacles _ ? That’s definitely new, but not exactly something Luka thought note-worthy after rock giants, shape-shifters, and a straight-up  _ mermaid _ . The Akuma still scared him, aside from the tentacles. It just  _ looked  _ more powerful than anything he had ever seen. He knew Akumas’ strength depended on how their rationale and emotions were enhanced, but this went beyond that. Its entire being scared the shit out of him.

Luka was afraid for the heroes. He was afraid just looking at a photo, not even its path of anger, much less a direct threat like they were. What a nightmare it would be to fight that thing.  _ Godspeed, Ladybug and Chat Noir. _ They’re definitely going to need as much help as possible with this one.

Shit _.  _

Ladybug fights Akumas. Ladybug needs to fight  _ this  _ Akuma. Marinette is Ladybug. Marinette Dupain-Cheng needs to go fight this Akuma. The small, fragile, sometimes clumsy girl next to him is going to fight this intimidating Akuma, and Hawkmoth himself, in a matter of minutes.

He told himself not to worry. She’s done this for years. She knows how to fight. She knows how to defend herself. She has Chat Noir by her side. An akuma’s judgement is always too clouded to do any real damage. She has her yo-yo. She has the back-up heroes if something goes really wrong. She wouldn’t have been chosen as Ladybug five years ago if she couldn’t handle it. This isn’t her first or fifth or twentieth Akuma battle. Ladybug can beat an Akuma. Marinette can beat an Akuma. She’s a badass. As klutzy and awkward as Marinette is, she’s got more than enough ferocity to survive. If Luka had to back one person as the option to beat Hawkmoth, it would be Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

But then Luka notices Marinette’s trembling. She’s staring wide-eyed at the photo on her phone, muttering something he can’t hear.

He reaches for her arm and then she’s looking wildly at him. “Marinette? What’s wrong? It’s an Akuma, got this. You always got this.”

Her eyes are searching his face like his teal blue dye could hold the answers to the universe. 

“This isn’t just an Akuma, Luka.” Her voice shakes. “This is Hawkmoth. In public, for the first time in  _ years _ . And I’m not sure that’s even an Akuma at all. It looks too powerful, too aware. It almost looks li-”

And she’s back to staring at the photo. Except her eyes are racing even faster now and growing bigger by the second and her shoulders are trembling harder than he thought possible.

“Marinette? What is it, Marinette? It looks like what?”

“It looks like a  _ Miraculous holder _ . Look at its arm. That’s not a stylised ridge. That’s a bracelet. Molded into its skin so you can’t try to take it off. What Miraculous do you know that’s blue and looks like a bracelet?”

“No.” Luka froze.

“Yes.”

“That means Hawkmoth has the snake Miraculous. Hawkmoth has Sass. Hawkmoth has Second Chance. Hawkmoth has…” Luka’s eyes widen. “Marinette, how did Hawkmoth get the bracelet? Was it in the Miracle Box?”

Now it was Marinette’s turn to freeze. “Oh my god. Oh godohgodoh  _ shit _ . He knows who I am.”

“So let’s get this straight. Hawkmoth has the butterfly. He has the peacock. He has the snake.” A frantic nod. “Hawkmoth knows where the Miraculous Box is, so he knows its owner - you. So then he knows that you’re Ladybug because who else would have the Box?”

The color drained out of Marinette’s face. “If he got into the Box, he could have all of the Miraculouses.” She paced around the room as she tried to think. “I need to, uh, I need to call Chat. See where he is, bring him up to speed. Then um… Check on m-my parents and the bakery and the Box and see what’s left. Bring in everyone whose Miraculous is left.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Good plan.” Luka sank down on the chair behind him. “Good plan. That sounds good. Get all the heroes to help and make sure everyone stays safe, yeah. Make sure he didn’t hurt anybody at the bakery and grab all the Miraculouses, yeah. Yeah.”

A sharp inhale broke Luka out of his own thoughts and he shot up from his seat. Marinette shook, breath more shallow than it should have been, with her phone pressed so tensely to her lips he was surprised it hadn’t Cataclysm-ed out of pure force. 

“Marinette.” He rubbed her upper arms as the lull of the boat rocked beneath them. “Breathe. Stop thinking. Feel the water. You know what to do. You can do it. You’re Ladybug. You’re Marinette Dupain-Cheng. You’ve taken down Chloe, you got through Lila’s lies, you work for goddamn Jagged Stone, Marinette. You’re not alone. You have Chat. Whatever heroes he didn’t take.” 

He pulled her slowly calming form into his chest. “You can handle Hawkmoth. It’ll be a walk in the park. A cakewalk. A breeze. A piece of cake. A… breezy walk in the park to get a piece of cake from the cakewalk. Yeah. You got this.”

A giggle sounded from the body that had started hugging him back. He squeezed her tight for a few seconds. Her arms wrapped tighter around his back and her cheek smushed further into his chest as if she were trying to burrow for safety in him.

“You are Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Baker, artist, roller derby star, fashion designer, class president. Ladybug. The only person  _ in history  _ to kiss Fang and get away with it. Multiple times. How many awards have you won with MDC by now? Like, thirteen?” A little voice mumbled  _ no _ into his shirt. “No yeah, you’re right. It’s gotta be more like twenty by now. Not to mention Ultimate Mecha Strike. How many competitions can they let you win before they stop you from competing anymore?”

The giggles were a little louder now, shaking him as he rocked her to the waves. 

“I’ll never understand how you accomplish so much, Marinette. How can you face everything the world throws at you and still come out so beautiful and passionate? I know you’ll beat Hawkmoth. Smart, creative, passionate, caring, and better than Hawkmoth in every single way possible.” 

“Compare that to his cranky, old-man-purple suit, those Akumas are all weak excuses to preserve his fragile bones from actually having to fight his own battles, and what vibrant, normal person has  _ hours _ to spend every day sitting around a bunch of butterflies waiting for someone to be upset? Old men, that’s who. And he’s even got a  _ cane _ \- what else do you need to tell the world  _ I’m a lonely old man failing to destroy the world _ ? What a weak excuse of a bad guy. Coward hides behind some wall instead of besting us all in hand-to-hand combat like a  _ real man _ ‘cause his retirement home won’t let him out of his wheelchair.”

There it is. The girl in question was sporting a full, teeth-out smile, even as her tears continued to spread on his shirt. Even Luka couldn’t hide his smiles or shaky laughs.

“You are going to beat his ass, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and you will live to tell the tale.”

  
  


Marinette looked up at him through tear-stained lashes. “You’re a  _ sap _ . And a terrible comedian. It’s a good thing you’re a musician or else I would be worried about what all this emotion would do to your brain, Luka.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He kissed the crown of her forehead for good luck or goodbye or something (anything, as long as he could kiss her), before woefully unwinding her from his arms. “Now get out there and save the day, Ladybug.”


End file.
